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Be very very skeptical

I received an e-mail in my inbox first thing this morning from friend and local businessman Bill Keitel, announcing to his friends that he was being filmed (for public TV) playing his guitar and singing at 2 p.m. today at BenLee’s Café in downtown Worthington, and asking them to come and be his audience. I know Bill to be a talented musician, but my April Fools’ skepticism immediately kicked in: Is this for real, or is Bill pulling an April 1 hoax?

A while later, I sorted through the mail in the Daily Globe newsroom, and a headline in one of the regional daily papers caught my eye. It claimed that a local football coach had been successfully recruited by the Minnesota Vikings. For a brief moment, I believed this tall tale, but then I noted that every other headline on the page was news of the too-good-to-be-true variety. The whole front page was a spoof.

Now I am on high alert. I am not going to have my leg pulled today.

But there’s a part of me that wishes I was better at being a leg-puller. DotMom had a real talent for April 1 pranks. Each year, she would come up with a tale that was just plausible enough for me to believe, and then she’d catch me unaware before I’d put my skeptic suit on for the day. She delighted when she’d catch her kids, hook line and sinker.

Even though I wrack my brain, I can’t seem to come up with the right bit of fancy to fool my friends and family. And even if I do, I can’t pull it off. Guess I’m just not a good enough liar, and that’s a good thing, right?

By the way, Bill Keitel was not pulling my leg. He is indeed being filmed by Pioneer Public TV at 2 p.m. today. I understand it’s part of a feature that Pioneer is doing on Keitel’s Buffalo Billfold Co., so I can show up to listen without fear of being played for a fool.